


love notes

by mjules



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of tiny one-shot vignettes that I've written for my friends. Unrelated, multiple pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Southern Snow (Feynriel/Connor)

Connor has a secret list of phrases -- little mantras, little spells – that he never says out loud. He has never written them down anywhere, too afraid that someone will find them. They are a comforting patter in the back of his mind, a touchstone of tempo, a talisman of identity. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn’t know who he was if he didn’t think them.

 

He comes close to saying some of them out loud sometimes, their weight like a hot stone on the tip of his tongue, burning to be let out. Watching Feynriel in the garden, hair the color of moonlight, fingers paler than moonflowers, he feels the clench in his chest and the pressure in his throat and thinks – and almost says – _I want to kiss you in the snow_.

 

He remembers snow from Ferelden, cold and white, brighter than moonlight, blinding in the sunlight, as cold and as tempting as Feynriel’s smile. It doesn’t snow in Tevinter and the closest thing he has is sand, not the right color, not the right feeling. Not the fat, fluffy flakes that would cling to Feynriel’s eyelashes; not the chill in the air that would turn his pale cheeks rosy, give Connor an excuse to press close, an excuse to touch. Feynriel would look good in heavy robes trimmed with fur; he would look better flushed and pale, spread out on a blanket of fur in a high-posted bed with the firelight dancing over his skin.

 

The closest he ever comes to saying any of this is when he asks Feynriel out of the blue one fine summer day, “Did it ever snow in Kirkwall?”

 

Feynriel looks up at him and blinks slowly. His silence beats at Connor’s patience, but Connor waits, determined not to look as desperate as he feels for the reply.

 

“Only ashes from the foundry district,” Feynriel says, and Connor frowns.

 

He looks out over the water, toward the south, toward the home he hasn’t known since he was almost too young to remember, and says, “I miss the snow.”


	2. Half-Past Sunrise (Hawke/Anders)

Garrett has seen Varric’s stories, the Tales of the Champion edition of _Hard in Hightown_ , specifically, where Garen’s beautiful, tortured lover with the tragic past refuses to be wooed to bed, burning the midnight oil as he labors away at his studies, trying desperately to find a cure for the plague that stalks the city streets, the illness that Fels is sure will one day take the champion from him. They’re ridiculous, and Anders has laughed his way through more than one of them, asking Garrett (under his breath, never loud enough that Varric can hear) if the dwarf really thinks an adult human male can bend that way.

 

But what Varric has gotten wrong more than anything is which of them is the workaholic and which is the slugabed.

 

“I promised I would take a look at the armor stand in Hightown,” Garrett says as Anders clings to him, pulling him back down to the mattress. “It’s half-past sunrise, and if I don’t get there soon, the city guard will have trampled all over it.”

 

“Good,” Anders replies, voice muffled by sleep and his pillow. “Let Aveline take care of it. It’s not like she won’t call you to come look at it later anyway.”

 

“She’ll muck up the clues,” Garrett insists, and Anders snorts.

 

“So? You can’t solve every crime in Kirkwall, love, and you shouldn’t try. At least not before noon.”

 

Garrett finally relaxes, letting Anders pull him against his bare, warm body. “What else am I going to do? Lie in bed all day?”

 

Anders cracks open one eye, and his smile is wicked enough to curl Garrett’s toes – or maybe that’s from the way Anders’s hand slides down his torso and over his hip to find and cup his rising cock. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard yet.”


	3. Approval (Hawke/Anders)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU

Anders’s apartment is always a mess, empty, open boxes on the floor surrounded by balls of paper – all kinds of paper, from notebook to fastfood wrappers to receipts, all balled up and tossed around on the floor.

 

“Don’t you ever clean this place?” Garrett asks teasingly after they’ve been dating for about a week. Anders looks around and shrugs.

 

“Cheaper than buying cat toys,” he says, right about the time the brown tabby does a belly flop into a pile of paper. Looking more closely, Garrett can see gray ears peeking out of one of the boxes, an orange tail twitching at the edge of a paper grocery bag lying open beside it.

 

 _I’m dating a crazy cat lady,_ Garrett thinks, but at least Anders locks the cats out of the bedroom without being asked.

 

**

 

At some point, Anders must have opened the door, or else the cats know how to pick the lock. He wouldn’t put it past them; cats are creepy. Garrett’s a dog person. At any rate, the orange one is sitting at the foot of the bed, staring at Garrett, eyes reflecting the street light filtering through the window. He looks like he’s _judging_ , and Garrett frowns back at him, unconsciously tightening his hold on Anders, who is sprawled across his chest.

 

The cat sneezes, jumps down, and stalks away, tail waving in the air. Garrett resists the urge to flip him off.

 

**

 

“I don’t think your cat likes me,” he tells Anders the next morning over a breakfast of cold cereal. The gray cat keeps trying to stick her nose into Anders’s bowl, probably after the milk, and Garrett cringes when Anders moves his hand to give her better access.

 

“Which one?”

 

“The orange one. He was glaring at me last night.”

 

“Oh, Sir Pounce. Yeah, he’s suspicious of new people. Just give him time.”

 

Time is the last thing Garrett wants to give the cat, but everything he wants to give to Anders. Well. Not _everything._

 

**

 

Two weeks later, Pounce has started warming up to Garrett, but he’s not sure he likes what that means. Most often it means a butt in his face or a thief at his dinnerplate, and still with the judging at night. At least he’s not around when Garrett and Anders are fucking; Garrett wouldn’t be surprised if the little beast held up a score card afterward.

 

But Pounce is Anders’s favorite cat, and Garrett grins and bears it, and sometimes scratches him behind the ears. He starts bringing treats, too, and while the other two cats are just happy to enjoy the new bounty, Pounce seems to know it’s a bribe.

 

Garrett doesn’t know yet whether it’s worked.

 

**

 

Two months in, Garrett is sitting on the couch watching a crappy made-for-TV movie when Pounce jumps up beside him and stares. Anders is working on his term papers in the other room, and Garrett is waiting for him to finish so they can go to dinner. Pounce stares, and Garrett stares back, and no one is more surprised than him when Pounce curls up on his stomach and starts purring. Uncertain, Garrett reaches out and scritches behind his ears. Pounce purrs louder, so Garrett keeps doing it.

 

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until Anders takes the remote out of his hand and then shoos Pounce off Garrett’s stomach. Garrett mumbles something in just-awake confusion, and Pounce grumbles at being moved to the floor. Anders straddles Garrett’s hips and smiles down at him, long blond hair tossed up in a messy ponytail, glasses perched on the end of his nose.

 

“I told you he’d warm up to you,” he says, and Garrett says something that might be “Nrrmmphf.”

 

Anders laughs and leans down to kiss him. “Pounce is a very good judge of character,” he says against the corner of Garrett’s mouth. “And he defends my honor. He’s scared some creeps off before they had the chance to mess me up too bad. Swatted one bugger on the nose for calling me names.” Another kiss. “But this time I knew he’d approve.”

 

Two hours later, they still haven’t made it to dinner, but Anders sits naked on Garrett’s naked stomach and feeds him ice cream straight out of the carton, both of them flushed with their fading orgasms. Out of the corner of his eye, Garrett sees Pounce pretending to be asleep in his bed, one eye open, watching.


	4. losses and gains (Hawke/Anders, postgame)

The fingers on his arm were cool, a dry rasp of winter across his skin, and he turned, catching Anders's hand before he could pull away. The light in his eyes and the curve of his smile sent a flutter of warmth through Garrett's chest.

"You look happy."

"I am. Happier than I ever hoped I'd be." He turned his hand, linking their fingers. "It seems selfish, I guess, to be this happy when we've lost everything and so many other people have too, but I can't help it."

Garrett pulled him in closer, feeling the extra thinness under the heavy coat. He worried about how much weight Anders was losing, but he seemed energetic, healthier than when they'd been in Kirkwall. Even though the war was spreading - or maybe because it was, mages in every circle across Thedas rebelling, following Anders's clarion call - he smiled more now than he had in the past seven years.

"I can't help but think," Garrett mused, sparing a wry pang for the thought of companions abandoned, "that we haven't lost as much as some people would think."

"No, I don't suppose we have." He was still smiling when Garrett kissed him, lips curving but still pliant, joy almost a tangible thing on his tongue.


	5. What She Wants (Isabela/Bethany, modern AU)

“You’re trying to get me killed,” Isabela says with a low laugh as she slings one long, brown leg over the windowsill. Her denim shorts are cut off so high that the inside of the pockets hang down past the hem, and the reflection of the street light outside Bethany’s window shimmers up that tempting expanse of skin.

 

“Don’t worry.” Bethany shifts on the bed, grinning, waiting for Isabela to come to her because that’s the way Isabela likes to play this game. “Mother and Father are at a party tonight and won’t be back until later.”

 

Isabela pulls the rest of her body through the window, letting go of the tree branch so sharply that it loses several leaves. She brushes herself off and gives Bethany an arch look. “I’m not worried about your parents, sweet thing. Your brother’s the one that will hunt me down.”

 

Bethany can’t play it cool any longer and holds out a hand, beckoning the older girl onto the mattress with her. “Don’t worry about _him_ , either. He sneaked off with Anders right after our parents left. And Carver’s at football camp all week.”

 

Isabela’s sigh is long-suffering, but it’s also an act, and Bethany grins as she climbs up over her on the bed. “The things I risk for you, darling,” she murmurs, and Bethany fights to keep from closing her eyes when Isabela leans in for a kiss. It’s a losing battle, eyelashes lowering with Isabela’s drugging kisses, but she wants to see, so she lets her hands do it for her, wandering down over the soft fabric of Isabela’s shirt where it stretches over her shoulders, finding the strip of warm skin where it rides up her back, the dip in her waist just above the denim of her shorts.

 

Bethany is pretty sure Isabela started flirting with her as a way to piss off Garrett, just the kind of good-natured rivalry they’ve had for years, but Bethany knows a good opportunity when she sees one. It’s something people forget about her, being the youngest and quietest of the Hawke siblings.

 

She slides Isabela’s shirt up, splays her hands across her belly, and lets her fingertips toy with the underwire of Isabela’s bra. Isabela squirms, breaking the kiss long enough to twist her arms around to find the clasp on her bra, unhooking it, and that’s when she pauses. Bethany can read the doubts in her eyes and frowns.

 

“I shouldn’t,” Isabela says even as her bra falls loose and Bethany cups her breasts. She closes her eyes and bites her lip, pressing forward into Bethany’s touch, and says again, “I really shouldn’t.”

 

Bethany stops touching her, puts her hands palm-flat on the mattress, and leans back. “Why not?”

 

Isabela falters, opening her eyes and staring at Bethany. “Beg pardon?”

 

“If you don’t want me, that’s one thing.” Her voice cracks on _want;_ if that’s true, it will hurt more than she’s prepared to admit. “You can just leave. But if you think you shouldn’t because you’re afraid of my brothers or my parents or what people will say if they find out, then fuck that.”

 

Isabela seems amused at her language, but just because Bethany’s quiet doesn’t mean she doesn’t know her way around an angry vocabulary.

 

“My body’s mine, not theirs, and this is my choice to make.” She stays where she is, though it costs her a lot not to put her arms around Isabela and beg her to stay. She’s wanted the older girl, her brother’s best friend, since before she knew what to do with that want. “So which is it?”

 

Isabela’s smile is wicked, full of bone-melting heat, and she slides one hand up Bethany’s thigh to the hem of her nightshirt, lets the other hand trace the open collar down Bethany’s chest. “Sweetheart,” she says, her voice deep and thick and full of all the things that make Bethany’s stomach tingle. “I _definitely_ want you…if you’re sure.”

 

Bethany’s never been more sure of anything in her life. She reaches for the button and zipper on Isabela’s shorts, sliding her hand inside and sighing happily when Isabela spreads her legs wider to accommodate her. And if she hears the fabric of her favorite nightshirt tear when Isabela stretches the collar enough to cup Bethany’s breast and bring it to her mouth, it’s a small price to pay for getting what she wants. 


	6. After Kirkwall (Hawke/Anders, postgame)

A lot of things had changed since they’d left Kirkwall. There was no more sleeping on feather-stuffed mattresses, surrounded by pillows, with the mabari snoring in front of the nearby fireplace. No more waking in the night wrapped in warmth and blankets and each other. No more lazy mornings, sleeping until the sun was already high in the sky, staying in bed together until their empty stomachs drove them in search of the lunch Bodahn had been holding in the kitchen.

Now the cold ground made Anders’s back hurt, and more often than not he didn’t sleep past dawn. Hawke limped over to where he stood by the dying embers of their campfire, favoring the knee that had been busted during his duel with the Arishok. The glance Anders cut toward his leg was still tinged with guilt for not healing the bone and muscle well enough, even after all these years. Hawke didn’t have time to coddle his feelings anymore, as much as he wanted to, as much as he wanted to repeat Don’t blame yourself. He’d said it enough times in the past; he didn’t have the patience for it now. Thankfully, Anders didn’t need him to say it. Guilt was too heavy a burden for the shoulder that always popped in the cold, never the same since he’d been slammed into the ground by the varterral and pinned there by one long, sharp leg. He didn’t keep it long; let the feeling slide off his bad back with the chill of the morning.

The sunrise threaded his hair with red gold, and Hawke couldn’t resist tangling his hand in it, catching in the loose fall beneath a hasty ponytail. Anders relaxed, but he didn’t lean into the touch, didn’t turn toward Hawke.

“We should keep moving,” he said, the words almost rote by now. He said them every morning, no matter how obvious it was that their camp was unsuitable for long-term stays. “If nothing else, we should find a new patch of ground to torment ourselves with. Maybe we’ll find one with a perfect rock to ruin my other shoulder.”

Hawke smiled and tapped lightly against the back of Anders’s neck. A lot of things had changed since Kirkwall, but the main one hadn’t, and Anders turned, tender smile lit up by the glow of the sun sliding through the tree branches. Despite his hurry, he melted into Hawke’s kiss, pliant and hungry, and his tongue tasted of ashes. Hawke pressed closer and closed his eyes, willing the fire not to go out just yet.


End file.
